Once upon a time, the official hand signal of a Texas A&M fan was thumbs up, meaning gig ’em. But that is so yesterday. These days, everyone from the winged quarterback to the bow-tied president is rubbing the tips of his fingers against his thumbs.

Cashin’ out, it’s called. Cashin’ in, is more like it.

Maybe you saw the release last weekend from A&M reporting a state-record $740 million in fundraising the last fiscal year, which ended Aug. 31.

For a little perspective, the figure is almost as much as A&M raised the last four years combined.

Now that the Aggies have won the lottery, how are you going to keep ’em down on the farm?

More to the point: Now that they know what a Heisman quarterback is worth, what’s to stop them now?

“People ask me all the time if you have a winning football team, do you raise more money,” Texas A&M Foundation president Ed Davis told Bryan-College Station’s The Eagle. “In normal times, the statistical data wouldn’t support that. But in an era where we are … in the news everywhere and you have a young man like our quarterback who has been a media magnet and you have the success you have, I do think that euphoria does spill over into success in fundraising.”

You think, Ed?

Explaining the haul in an email to donors, John Sharp, A&M’s chancellor, credited A&M’s move to the SEC as well as a government contract to develop vaccines in College Station.

Let me put a finer point on it.

Let’s say the Aggies had moved to the SEC and it had turned out more like most of us thought it would. No 10-win season. No historic drama in Tuscaloosa. No Heisman Trophy.

No Johnny Football.

If not for all of the above, the Aggies wouldn’t suddenly be up to their navels in cash and pledges, vaccine contracts or no. Moving to the SEC helped. But even if Johnny Manziel had been a Big 12 quarterback, the results would have largely been the same. Or better. The Aggies proved they were good enough to beat Alabama. Playing a watered-down Big 12 schedule, they might have been national champs.

But let’s not dwell on what might have been. The Aggies are happy to be where they are, as they should be.

In fact, on any given Saturday, you can find their outgoing president, R. Bowen Loftin, on the sideline, high-fiving players and generally having himself a grand old time. Maybe it’s also easier now to understand Sharp’s defense of Manziel after a series of autograph stories broke on ESPN.com.

Most administrators tend to take a more neutral stance in such matters until more details are available. Consider the reaction of Oklahoma State officials to charges recently leveled by Sports Illustrated.

Sharp, on the other hand, defended a 20-year-old sophomore like he was an old pal.

Of course, most sophomores don’t make it rain all over your campus.

Heismans mean big money, to the schools, if not the players. Baylor officials estimate that Robert Griffin III’s Heisman was worth an extra $250 million to the university. They also credit the announcement with shaking more money from donors, enabling them to finalize plans for their new $250 million stadium on the banks of the Brazos.

Meanwhile, Mack Brown didn’t want RG3 or Manziel as quarterbacks. As good as Mack is at raising money, you’d have thought he could sniff the potential windfall.

Anyway, like Baylor, A&M is also getting a new stadium out of its Heisman. Plans for a renovation to Kyle Field were already underway before Johnny Football arrived, but it’s safe to say footing the bill for the $450 million redo wouldn’t have been possible so soon without him.

It remains unclear whether the record financial support at A&M was simply a one-time benefit to pay off the stadium. Sustaining such a level of giving would seem impossible, especially if Manziel leaves for the NFL after this season, which he almost surely will do.

But even if A&M can’t do it again — or falls to the level of, say, $453 million, what Texas raised the last fiscal year — the impact will leave a mark, in more ways than one.

Pressure to win in college football has usually been the province of boards or boosters. Administrators were level-headed, keepers of the university mission, the last sane people involved in college athletics.

But once a president has seen the bottom line a Heisman or a star player generates, is it so far-fetched to think he or she might weigh a wink or a nod to the head coach against the greater good all that money could do?

Three-quarters of a billion dollars buys a lot of brick and mortar. A conscience might be had for considerably less.

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About Kevin Sherrington

Kevin Sherrington, a general sports columnist, was born in Dallas and grew up in Houston. He has worked at five newspapers in Texas. He has worked at The Dallas Morning News since 1985. He had no idea his career would come to blogging.